Welcome to the new GTFS.org

The GTFS Documentation Platform is now updating automatically 🤩 🥳

When you get to GTFS.org, make sure you look twice, because although the website might look the same, we’ve made some exciting updates. Life moves fast, and turns out so do specifications.  

(🧐 Not seeing anything new? Try clearing your web browser’s cache.)

Now, GTFS documentation updates automatically with the specification’s evolution. No more wondering if the information you get is including the latest changes to GTFS!  

But MobilityData, how did you know which documentation to include? 

Well, we spent some time (read: a lot of time) to figure out what documentation, both internally and externally would be the best for our community. We’ve gathered everything in one place from sources like GTFS.org, Google Transit APIs, gtfs.mobilitydata.org, and the GTFS GitHub repository. We wanted to create an easy to use documentation platform to learn everything there is to learn about GTFS, because let’s face it, GitHub can be a scary place if you aren’t a developer. 

Now, more technical details 

Previously, GTFS.org was difficult to maintain and the opportunities for users to contribute were unclear. We’ve moved to a MkDocs Material framework. What does this mean exactly? It’s a static website generator that’s designed for our very purpose, documentation. There are also flexible UX/UI options, clearer user contributions, as well as uncomplicated maintenance for different abilities, meaning GTFS.org is here to stay, no matter who is responsible on the back-end.  

You may have noticed that we are talking about GTFS.org, and not gtfs.mobility.org. We’ve chosen to maintain GTFS.org simply because it is already widely used, and is pretty self-explanatory in terms of a domain name. With this, we want to extend the reach of GTFS.org in the community. What about gtfs.mobilitydata.org? It will be redirected to GTFS.org, which if you didn’t guess until now, will be our new cozy home for GTFS documentation. It already includes best practices, a list of tools and resources, data examples, and of course, the reference documentation.

You don’t think we’re stopping here, do you? 

We’ve got lots up our sleeve for the future of GTFS.org, we’re so excited that we’re already working on it. Although we like a little bit of mystery, we can tell you that we plan on working on translations for more accessibility, consistently adding community-driven content, and giving the site a bit of a facelift, because although it’s what’s on the inside that counts, it doesn’t hurt to be pretty.